Free Republic

This mess at our southern border is stirring up the Sunday-school wannabes again, and as a Christian and a conservative I am getting tired of being schooled by liberal Christians and nonbelievers about what my opinions should be, about what Jesus would do. This needs to stop; we Christians need to stand up for our Savior and put an end to the appropriation of our Scripture and misunderstandings of Christ’s commandments. In order to do this, we must first establish a couple of principles that are often ignored in this era of super-sloppy thinking. In the first place, God quite...

TRENTON, New Jersey, January 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Just before Christmas, pro-life advocates were arrested for entering the Trenton, New Jersey Planned Parenthood and distributing red roses to abortion-vulnerable women. They saved at least one life during this Red Rose Rescue (RRR). At roughly 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 22, pro-life advocates Father Fidelis Moscinski of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, William Goodman, Patrice Woodworth, and Matthew Connolly entered the abortion facility on State Street in Trenton. This was the first RRR at a Planned Parenthood. The pro-lifers counseled some six women in the waiting room and gave them...

The real problem is that the crisis is deeper and its reasons can’t in any way be reduced to politics or the question of autocephaly. And the people who live in Ukraine and the Ukrainian church bear in themselves exactly the same wounds of Soviet authority that people in the modern Russian Federation bear. They are not free of Soviet times just as we are not free; they haven’t repented and haven’t been reborn either. And that rebirth cannot happen if people continue to insist that the reasons for the horror of the 20th century are external, rather than within...

Spark Networks Inc., owner of ChristianMingle.com, LDSSingles.com and other faith-based dating websites, will make its services more LGBT-friendly after settling a discrimination lawsuit filed by two gay men. The dating sites previously “required new users to specify whether they’re a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Now, people will simply sign-up as a male or female. Additionally, “Spark Networks agreed that within two years, it would adjust other searching and profile features to give gay and lesbian singles a more tailored experience,” the article noted. The lawsuit focused on a California...

In the death of the lost, one is instantly transported into the ETERNAL and whatever manner of life one has lived here in time on planet earth will rapidly dissipate to the REALITY of the ETERNAL. No matter the manner of Almighty God's death summons in a human's life, whether by peaceful, calm or tranquil means or by tragic, violent or monstrous means; the means (the execution there of) of one's death will infinitesimally pale to the ETERNAL REALITY in which one has been now placed in. For then ALL delusion is exposed and ALL fantasy and make-believe is shattered...

Catholic bishops from across the U.S. are gathering Wednesday for a weeklong retreat on the clergy sex abuse crisis at a seminary near Chicago. Organizers said the retreat, which was requested by Pope Francis, will focus on prayer and spiritual reflection and not policy-making. The gathering comes as CBS News has also learned of several cases involving nuns accused of sexual misconduct. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests – or SNAP – said it doesn't keep count of sexual abuse allegations, but CBS News' Nikki Battiste has spoken with several women who recently reported misconduct, ranging from forceful...

Reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, China mobilizes citizen spies, vigilantes to “maintain public order” and suppress religion.A team of people wearing red arm bands.Large groups of citizens, loyal to the party and serving as informers and enforcers at the grassroots level, can be seen almost everywhere in China today. They are easily recognizable by the red armband they wear prominently. The so-called “red armbands,” mobilized masses and cadres for patrolling and inspecting, have become the instrument that the CCP uses to monitor the community, especially dissenters and religious believers. The appearance of these zealous citizens enforcing a moral and disciplinary...

Buried in the concluding paragraphs of a Christmas Eve Washington Times report about Muslims in Uganda forcing Christians to convert to Islam was the extraordinary revelation that in that country, Muslims now consider any public statement of the Christian Faith to be a calculated insult to Muslims, for which they can justifiably exact revenge. This is, or should be, sobering news for the comfortable Christians of the West who have made an idol out of “interfaith dialogue” and fastidiously avoid saying anything remotely critical about Islam, even as the Muslim persecution of Christians continues worldwide. “In June,” the Times reported,...

Pope Francis, Indifferentism, and Islamization Two young Scandinavian women who were hiking in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco were found dead in mid-December in their tent. ISIS terrorists later posted a video of themselves decapitating one of the victims.The mother of one of the women told reporters, “Her priority was safety. The girls had taken all precautionary measures before embarking on this trip.”“Except,” as Robert Spencer commented in JihadWatch, “that it no doubt didn’t even occur to them that what they thought they knew about Morocco’s religion and culture might be inaccurate and designed to whitewash Islam, leaving them ill-informed...

The “Donald Trump/Mike Pence Prayer Vigil” and “Pray for our American Heroes" Prayer Thread have Combined to Form the AMERICA PRAYER VIGIL Prayer Thread! Join with Fellow FREEPERS to Pray for our PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. 'And this is the Confidence that we have in Him, that, if we Ask Anything According to His Will, He Heareth us.' 1 John 5:14 Religion Forum Threads Labeled [Prayer] are Closed to Debate of Any Kind. Ps.29:11 The Lord will Give Strength Unto His People; The Lord will Bless His...

* Smaller sized churches often have no weddings throughout the entire year * Traditional white church weddings are dying out as congregations dwindle * Church weddings have been declining steeply since a change in the law in 1995 * The C of E hosted 38,000 weddings last year, a fall from more than 50,000 in 2007A typical Church of England parish church now hosts only one wedding every year, figures show. The Church’s statistics also reveal that just five funerals are held at these middle-sized churches each year. Smaller churches often have no weddings during the year. The admission that...

How do you know your church is approved by God? One way is to see it attacked by Satanists on Christmas Eve. My church in San Antonio is a small one, less than 150 members in a quiet non-descript building in a middle-class section of town compared to the many larger churches with massive facilities. I dare say some of you probably live in houses bigger than this church. But we are a church with solid roots in the gospel of Jesus Christ and we've been praying earnestly for God's presence and direction in our lives and growth among our...

A primary school principal in Sixian links Christmas to the invasion of the Western powers during the Opium Wars and after the Boxer Revolution. High school students swear to fight "the invasion of Western parties" which is an "aggression against Chinese culture". Street demonstrations to "reject Christmas" and remember Mao Zedong.Beijing (AsiaNews) - For the Chinese people, celebrating Christmas is "a burning shame" and "an aggression against Chinese culture"; rather than celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25, it is better to celebrate the birth of Mao Zedong on December 26th. These are some of the slogans that echoed...

Since the start of the “Program 200” project in 2010, 85 churches have been built in Moscow, with another 150 planned, program curator State Duma Deputy Vladimir Resin said, reports Interfax. The program was originally meant to build 200 churches, so everyone in the capital would have a church within walking distance, but the program has since expanded. “In just 8 years, 85 church complexes have been erected in Moscow within the framework of the program and beyond it. 59 of those have already been put into operation, including 9 in ‘new’ Moscow,” Resin explained. In all, 193 church complexes...

COLLEPARDO, Italy — Inside the stone walls of the Trisulti monastery, for more than eight centuries, monks have lived in quiet seclusion, praying, reading and concocting medicinal remedies with herbs from the surrounding forest. But now, only one 83-year-old monk remains. A longtime chef-gardener still lives there, as well, along with several dozen feral cats. The other resident at Trisulti is the newcomer: a 43-year-old Briton who is one of Stephen K. Bannon’s closest associates in Europe and who hopes to transform the monastery into a “gladiator school for culture warriors.” One recent morning, Benjamin Harnwell, the Bannon acolyte, grabbed...

Underground Catholics in Jiangxi May Lose Their Churches Authorities are harassing underground Catholic churches in the Diocese of Yujiang, intimidating believers into joining the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Bitter Winter has recently reported that underground Catholic meeting venues in the Archdiocese of Fuzhou, in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, have been suppressed by the authorities and even shut down. Members of the Underground Catholic Church in the central province of Jiangxi face the same predicament, suffering frequent coercion and harassment at the hands of authorities. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interprets the Vatican-China deal of 2018 to the effect...

A modern verification of an ancient event and tangible evidence of an ancient person. And once again, biblical history is verified.Our team of thinkers and writers at the Colson Center are archaeology nerds. Seriously, we get giddy whenever another archaeological discovery sheds light on biblical narratives or confirms their historical accuracy. And even more fun, it seems to happen all the time these days.Keep in mind that biblical faith is grounded in historical events, events to which the Bible testifies. This is one of the factors that sets the Bible apart from other religious texts. Recently, two announcements made illustrate...

Media reports over the last several months have trumpeted that witches in the U.S. now outnumber Presbyterians.It’s great religious click-bait but the assertion, to the extent it’s based on anything, rests on a false comparison.In 2014 Pew Research Center estimated that 0.4 percent of Americans, about 1 to 1.5 million people, identify as Wiccan or Pagan. This statistic, cited in all the media reports, is evidently the most recently available data, although it is four years old. But faddish stories can sometimes be ginned up based on old numbers.Media reports have compared this number of supposed Wiccans/Pagans with 1.4 million...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Toymaker Mattel, the producers of the Barbie and Ken dolls, has reportedly scheduled a meeting to enter into talks with two homosexual men who want the company to create same-sex “wedding” dolls in order to be inclusive of children who have homosexual family members. Matt Jacobi tagged Mattel in a recent Instagram post outlining that he plans to “wed” a man in May, and wanted to buy a gift for his niece to mark the occasion. He said that because Mattel doesn’t make a Barbie wedding set with two grooms, he “had to get creative” and buy...

What is happening in China? Why is Chinese leader Xi Jinping, raging against religion, including Buddhism, Islam, and especially Christianity? Psalm 2 poses the question rhetorically, in the context of what has proven to be a historic phenomenon: Why are the nations in an uproar (a rage) And the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying ‘Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!’ From Nero to Lenin and Stalin, Hitler, the Kims of North...